1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a personal information management apparatus and a personal information managing method for managing personal information, and a storage medium and a program therefor, and more specifically to a personal information management apparatus and a personal information managing method for managing personal information about a person by dividing the information into plural sets of different situations, and a storage medium and a program therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, efficient management of personal information has become more and more important in daily life as well as in business. Personal information refers to, for example, common information such as an address book, telephone book, schedule information, etc. that have been managed on notebooks, and also to the bookmark of a WWW browser, and the option setting information, etc. for the OS or an application program.
The personal information has been increasing in volume and variation with the development and complexity of information processing appliances. A number of information terminals and management applications are being marketed at present, and the personal information management function has been installed in a portable telephone, etc. In addition, to utilize the personal information management in various requirements, personal information has also been accumulated in a server for access through a network.
However, personal information has been managed in a distribution system in various places, and users have found difficulty in appropriately obtaining personal information. To solve the problem, there have been several practical applications to collectively manage the personal information.
For example, an information terminal device is described in Japanese patent Publication No.2000-67118. The device receives a request to set a schedule between users using a schedule database for management of the schedule of an operator, and communication means for communication between the users, and has the function of reflecting a setting result on the schedule database of each user.
However, in the personal information management apparatus (personal agent) such as the above mentioned information terminal device, there has been the following problem in processing the personal information.
Users have respective status and situations in their offices, home, etc. Especially, mixing up private information with public information causes a problem of the business security, infringement of privacy, etc. Therefore, users have no alternative but to use a plurality of personal information management apparatus (personal agent) and manage the information as different persons.
On the other hand, in the method of processing information as completely different persons, all personal information has to be separately managed as each person who has set his or her own personal information, thereby failing in collectively managing the personal information which is the first object of the personal information management apparatus (personal agent) for managing the personal information.
The users request to classify the information to be managed by a plurality of personal information management apparatuses (personal agents) into an information group to be shared and another information group not to be shared so that the information to be shared can be equally accessed by any personal information management apparatus (personal agent).
Furthermore, if the plurality of personal information management apparatuses (personal agents) are independently used, it is necessary to separately use an information terminal for each personal information management apparatus (personal agent). Thus, it is almost impossible to use the plurality of personal information management apparatuses (personal agents) through one information terminal.
Although the function of communications among a plurality of personal information management apparatuses (personal agents) can be realized as the information terminal device disclosed by Japanese Patent Publication No.2000-67118, a method of processing the personal information about the same person by dividing the information into groups for different situations has not been provided. Therefore, unless a user personally switches his or her situation, appropriate information cannot be selected from among plural pieces of personal information.